The Force of Poetry

The Force of Poetry

Christopher Ricks is one of the best-known living critics of English, and was described by W. H. Auden as "the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding." Though published independently over many years, each of the essays in this collection asks how a poet's words reveal the "force of poetry," that force--in Dr Johnson's words--"which calls new power into being, which embodies sentiment, and animates matter." The poets covered range from John Gower, Marvell, and Milton to Wordsworth, Empson, Stevie Smith, Lowell, and Larkin, and the book contains four wider essays on clichés, lies, misquotations, and American English. "Indispensable for those who wish to become better readers of poetry....Eighteen varied essays on poets from Gower to Larkin by one of the liveliest minds in contemporary criticism: truly a feast in a famished land."--Walter E. Anderson, UCLA "Christopher Ricks is our most distinctive critic...the natural heir to Empson, exciting and fertile."-- The Observer "Christopher Ricks's great strength as a critic has always been his superbly zestful sense of the life in poetry's words....No one writing today has a wider range of verbal reference in English poetry, or a greater gusto in its deployment....The richness and variety of these essays is truly remarkable....They form a coherent as well as a combative gathering, each making a point as sharp as a needle as well as illuminating a general outlook."-- The Listener "The poets discussed in these eighteen essays, ranging from John Gower to Geoffrey Hill, call forth "new powers" from Ricks; his lively mind reanimates the poets he deals with. From his pen, the force of criticism is considerable....Ricks invariably invites us back to the poetry itself, refreshing our sense of what the words really "say" and thus refreshing our lives as well.' -- Sewanee Review Christopher Ricks is one of the best-known living critics of English, and was described by W. H. Auden as `the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding'. He is author of Beckett's Dying Words (OUP, 1993), Keats and Embarrassment (OUP, 1974), and editor of The New Oxford Book of Victorian Verse (Oxford, 1987).